DAY 247

TONGUES AND ALL THAT

Psalm 140, 141 & 142 and 1 Corinthians 14:1-20

“Do you speak in tongues?” It is a question I have been asked, more than a few times. When you go to a service where people are praying for God to heal, you are entering the Christian world that is many times labeled “charismatic.” I am not big on labels. I do think God hears our prayers and acts in His world. In that regard I am charismatic. But I am also rather reserved about it. In part because of what we have been reading in this 1^st letter to the Corinthians.

The deeper we get into this letter, the more it seems that this is a church where there are some people who are quite proud of the spiritual gifts they possess. Now we have just read about the church being “a body-each part needs the other” and we have read about how regardless of what spiritual gift you have…the greatest gift is love! And still Paul presses on in chapter 14 discussing “tongues” and “prophesying.” I am getting the sense that pride is a real issue. Let’s define each.

Tongues, or speaking in tongues, is a spiritual gift where people are speaking in a language that most of us cannot understand. The idea is that the person is so communing with God the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is speaking through them. There are actually two gifts: speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues. Today in the church some argue that this gift is no longer given. Rather than argue about today, let’s get back to the time the text was written. If would appear that people who spoke in tongues “lorded over others” the fact that they did!

Paul challenges that on several fronts. He has challenged it by his comments in chapters 12 and 13, and now he challenges by saying that prophesying is a greater and more useful gift. So what is prophesying?

Prophesying is not picking/predicting the winning PowerBall numbers. Prophesying is speaking God’s truth into a situation. Being able to see a situation for what it really is, and then to speak God’s truth. The Bible says this gift is much better. An example might help. David, after he committed adultery with Bathsheba was challenged by Nathan. You have read this story. God told Nathan to go and tell David a story…Nathan was speaking God’s truth. David when he heard the story was cut to the heart over the sin he committed.

 Knowing that God has put on your heart a message, a message that God has divinely inspired …and you give this message in a language that others understand…is very useful to the community of faith. What is the point of all this…again it is to create a community of people who are less about competing and more about collaborating to witness God’s love to the world.